


we grow accustomed to the light

by oikawafflehouse



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, Kissing, Late at Night, M/M, Second Year of High School, kunimi deserves the world and one day it will be given to him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oikawafflehouse/pseuds/oikawafflehouse
Summary: icarus in reverse.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kunimi Akira
Comments: 18
Kudos: 55





	we grow accustomed to the light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaumari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaumari/gifts).



> [my fossil is bright in the sun.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVZUBMUekck&list=RDwVZUBMUekck&start_radio=1)

There is an origin story unfolding slowly in Akira’s second-year of high school, and for once, he thinks he likes how it ends.

It comes in the form of Hinata Shouyou, walking alongside him with light footsteps after another practice match between their schools. A white-knuckled fist victory for Seijoh, but one that runs deeper than that for Akira because it is the first time he realizes that he can live with the _haves_ and the _have-nots_ , tucked neatly into the corners of his coming of age. 

He can not have the love-shaped hole left in the gym by his former upperclassmen, but he can always carve out his own and step right through it without dragging his feet too much. He can not have the knowledge of what it’s like to be seen by Kageyama Tobio without a filter of blue marking his vision - the tall kid with the glasses, _he knows_ ; Akira can tell - but he can have this. Standing on opposite sides of the net. Walking to nowhere in particular. Shouyou. Haphazard shades of orange. It doesn’t taste that bitter to him anymore. 

Shouyou burns differently underneath the glow of the streetlamp than he does under the fluorescent lighting of the gym where he dives to the ground for receives like his flickering, candle-flame life depends on it. Here, he becomes Icarus in reverse: the world falls to him. Trees. The sky. The buildings they walk pass. Akira. One way or another, they all collapse for Hinata Shouyou, and this is the ending Akira looks for. A story that practically tells itself. 

When Shouyou glances over his shoulder to lock eyes with Akira, he already knows how this is going to go. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west and Akira will _fall, fall, fall_ until there is nothing left to break his descent from the edge of the night except for the press of Shouyou’s lips against his. People see Shouyou in all of his burning greatness with his star-burst eyes and wide, open mouth screaming declarations of war, but Akira knows this river runs further than that, too. Quiet moments that dovetail into something he can have and call his own. Sometimes, it feel likes it's all he _can_ have. 

The best kind of stories don’t always start with a bang. It could start with Shouyou pressing the petal of a sunflower onto Akira’s tongue as they stand right outside the entrance of Akira’s school, filling him with the sweetness he’s come to know and love. 

It could start when they finally break away from each other and they become nothing more but spilled light and unbridled joy. Akira, who’s spent his entire life as a whispered epilogue becomes happiness multiplied by all the stars in the sky when he’s with Shouyou. 

It could start with a streetlamp watching them as they fall in love over and over again throughout night, twisting the nighttime shadows into something more lovely and beautiful, and that’s how Akira knows he’ll like the ending. It will not be bitter. 

It will be Shouyou as his beginning, and it will be Shouyou as his ending. An origin story worth telling.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/oikawafflehouse)
> 
> 1\. the song linked above is 'john my beloved' by sufjan stevens. i was listening to the song a few days after i had originally written this and i think it fits it pretty well! 
> 
> 2\. this was originally just a short thing i wrote on twitter, but the kunihina tag needs more content.
> 
> 3\. the title comes from an emily dickinson poem called 'we grown accustomed the the dark.' but i switched it around a bit.
> 
> 4\. all right, as per usual, likes and bookmarks are neato cheeto but comments are like the diamonds in minecraft to me and are much appreciated. do as you please! :)


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